88 CIVITAS DEI CH.

the above measures, and that they will mutually support
one another in resisting any special measures aimed at one ,
of their number by the covenant-breaking State, and that
they will take the necessary steps to afford passage through
their territory to the forces of any of the Members of the
League which are co-operating to protect the covenants of
the League. ,

Any Member of the League which has violated any
covenant of the League may be declared to be no longer a
Member of the League by a vote of the Council concurred
in by the Representatives of all the other Members of the
League represented thereon.

It was these Articles which led the United States
to reject the Covenant, and thus to cripple the
League from its birth. We are now faced by the fact
that not one but all the states which signed the
Covenant have broken their pledge in the letter as
well as the spirit. These pledges are dead. No miracle
can restore them to life. They are corpses hung round
the necks of the nations that signed them and broke
them, poisoning the life of the world and destroying
the benefits to be gained from a league of nations in
the true sense of that word, of a league, that is, which
does not pretend to the attributes of a state. The only
effective cure is to cut them away by a frank acknow-
ledgment made in the light of bitter experience that
in signing them we all made a mistake.

The League has failed in its primary duty of
revising treaties made in the fevered temper which
always follows a great war. I see no hope that the
League can revise its own Covenant and am, there-
fore, forced to say what I think my own country
should do, to deal with this mischievous situation.

I suggest that our first step should be to discuss
with the other British Dominions the question how
to establish a league of nations based on pledges
which practical experience allows us to think can be
kept. We have seen that nations are willing and able
to send their leaders to one centre to discuss the